14 ms·
Issue and Pull Request templates
- minimaxir 11y agoThe template is more for actual issues with the software than to-do lists/user grievances, the latter of which I see used more frequently in GitHub Issues. Maybe it's time to separate GitHub Issues into Issues and Discussion. EDIT: Missed the fact that the feature is opt-in by the repo owner, which makes things more expected depending on the nature of the repo. Although now thinking about it, the separation is still not a bad idea.
- dimgl 11y agoI don't agree. I think this is a great step into encouraging users to follow a format when submitting issues. It would make it easier to add tags to these issues as well. Any other discussion can be submitted the same way, you'd just remove the template and start typing.
- joshmanders 11y agoIndeed. Triaging issues which is a huge issue can now be simplified heavily with the usage of a bot that parses the template and tags issues. This is a great step forward and I'm excited that GitHub is doing this.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- guipsp 11y agoThe template is pulled from the repo.
- garethadams 11y agoRight, see: New issue: https://github.com/owncloud/core/issues/new https://github.com/owncloud/core/issues/new issue_template.md file in repo: https://github.com/owncloud/core/blob/master/issue_template.md https://github.com/owncloud/core/blob/master/issue_template....
- lr 11y agoI asked Craigslist to do this years ago for the "for sale" sections, so that people included the number of doors on a car, the color, etc., and the kind of heat in an apartment, and so on. Such a simple thing, and would make searching so much better, and the service in general better.
- BHSPitMonkey 11y agoCraigslist has dedicated form fields for a lot of those things, which can then be used with search filters. The problem is that they aren't mandatory, and most users don't fill them in. The side effect of this is that if you use the search filters, you risk missing out on a result which matches your criteria but lacks the metadata. (Craigslist doesn't have an option to search for only Blue AND Unspecified, so there's no good way to just hide the explicitly non-Blue cars.)
- mwhite 11y agoAllowing sellers not to fill out additional information that they easily could provides a useful signal to buyers about how well the transaction is likely to go.
- VeejayRampay 11y agoWell done Github. Simple and elegant solution that I hope will help people a lot.
- kuschku 11y agoIt’d be interesting if it’d provide a separate input box for each section of the template – maybe even a graphical editor for lists if the template specifies a list.
- colinodell 11y agopull_request_template.md also works.
- captn3m0 11y ago>Issue template filenames are not case sensitive, and can have an extension such as .md or .txt.
- anonicode 11y agocolinodell posted that before the blog announcement when we only knew about issue_template.md. It was to point out that you can do this with pull requests as well, not that it was case insensitive.
- steveklabnik 11y agoI have a PR open for Rust to use this. I and others are very skeptical in general, but there's some interesting discussion so far: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/31732 https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/31732
- swang 11y agoKinda meh on adding it to the repo since it's yet another file I have to "manage" that isn't really part of the working code.
- nvk 11y agoMany large FOSS projects (which this is aimed for) already have CONTRIBUTING.md etc... I personally prefer this non UI/Github specific approach.
- dhagz 11y agoI agree. This gives other git hosting providers the ability to implement the same feature using the same files.
- JBiserkov 11y agoYes. Yet it's a bit weird in case .github folder is used. Will they support a .bitbucket, .gitlab, etc. They could have used a more generic name like .contributing, but this increases the risk of name collision.
- sytse 11y agoWe plan to support both .github and .gitlab in GitLab https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2864 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2864
- zardeh 11y agoor like .dotfiles/ or .repoconfig/
- matheussampaio 11y agoThey can start with `.github` and later give us a way to define a custom name, like adding something on `.gitconfig` or `.gitattributes`.
- aidenn0 11y ago
- gcb0 11y agotalk about moving slow. two years and that's what we get? meanwhile my bigger diffs are still garbage. and we have to use other companies to have a simple agile board... and don't even get me started on decent branch management and rebases... sigh. really hate that my employer buys that
- VeilEm 11y agoDoesn't seem to work on enterprise github yet. :(
- gjtorikian 11y agoGitHub Enterprise releases typically run a few months behind GitHub.com changes. You'll likely have to wait until GHE 2.6. Sorry!
- jakozaur 11y agoGreat job! Next item, be able to star issues. That would help a lot and we are able to avoid +1 comments.
- michaelmior 11y agoSeems like this one is solved by showing the number of subscribers to an issue. I don't think this really needs to be a separate feature.
- anonicode 11y agoYes. When you subscribe to an issue you show that you are at least interested enough to receive notifications about it.
- icholy 11y agoEh, I don't like getting spammed with notifications when I'm subscribed to a popular issue. Maybe that will be less of a problem with fewer people posting +1 comments, but still. I wish I could just get a notification when the issue is closed.
- squeaky-clean 11y agoSure, but what if I don't care about being notified of ongoing discussion for an issue, and instead just want to be notified when it's been closed, or maybe a pull-request has been submitted?
- joshmanders 11y agoI don't think showing number of subscribers is a good selection of if that subscriber supports the issue. It could just mean they want to see what's going on before they weigh in. I watch a lot of repos, therefore I'm automatically subscribed to all and new issues, that'd show me as supporting everything.
- michaelmior 11y ago
- EC1 11y agoThere's a special place in hell for people that make jokes and post massive animated memes in issues.
- alextgordon 11y agoHeaven must be a real party then.
- jamesRaybould 11y agoThere is already a way of doing this using the URL like: https://github.com/jamesRaybould/go-mssqldb/issues/new?body=%23%23%23%20Story%20%2F%20Task%0A%0A%23%23%23%20Value%0A%0A%23%23%23%20Acceptance%20Criteria%0A%20-%20%5B%20%5D%20%0A%0A%23%23%23%20Notes https://github.com/jamesRaybould/go-mssqldb/issues/new?body=... You can then add it as a simple href to the readme.md. It also means that you can have multiple templates depending on what a user wants to do, just by having multiple links and changing the content of the `body` parameter. Simplest way to get going on this is to use http://urldecode.org http://urldecode.org to write the markdown you want and then hit the encode button, take the result and add it after `body=` We also use it to auto-assign labels using `labels=` in the URL
- krisdol 11y agoNice! Is this documented anywhere?
- jamesRaybould 11y agohttps://developer.github.com/v3/issues/#create-an-issue https://developer.github.com/v3/issues/#create-an-issue gives a bit of list of things that can be set, when using it as a link title isn't required. I can't for the life of me remember where I first saw it so I am pretty sure someone else deserves credit!
- michaelmior 11y agoDoesn't this inadvertently give users access to something they might not otherwise have? That is, the ability to add labels on issues. Might not really be a security concern, but not really desirable behaviour either.
- jamesRaybould 11y agoI don't think so, it seems like its just a link to what you can see within the UI anyway and simply pre selects it for you. But I am by no means an expert on it and it is pretty simple to experiment with if you want to give it a try
- shmerl 11y agoWhat about attachments to issues? Using gist for it is simply annoying.
- andrewguenther 11y agoAttachments have been around since 2012: https://help.github.com/articles/file-attachments-on-issues-and-pull-requests/ https://help.github.com/articles/file-attachments-on-issues-... https://github.com/blog/1347-issue-attachments https://github.com/blog/1347-issue-attachments
- shmerl 11y agoLimited to images? Am I supposed to take a screenshot of some huge error dump? A workaround is to use gists. But it's not a good workflow.
- technoweenie 11y agoGitHub also supports txt and other common document formats: https://github.com/blog/2061-attach-files-to-comments https://github.com/blog/2061-attach-files-to-comments
- shmerl 11y agoAh, that's a recent addition. Thanks for the pointer. Does it work for bugs? The post mentions pull request comments.
- anonicode 11y agoYes. It works on issues too.
- silverwind 11y agoI wonder why they have restriction based on file extension in place, it's just inconvenient that you have to rename .patch to .txt only for the UI to accept it.
- anonicode 11y ago> This is the first of many improvements to Issues and Pull Requests that we're working on based on feedback from the community So there is more to come
- secstate 11y agoGeez. I would hope so. Too bad it took them the better part of half a decade to listen to users. I've already moved a number of my personal projects to Gitlab, Bitbucket or a self-hosted Gogs installation. I've still got reasons to stick with Github for some projects, but it's not the new hotness it used to be. $10 says the next new feature is voting on issues.
- _ikke_ 11y agogithub released an announcement: https://github.com/blog/2111-issue-and-pull-request-templates https://github.com/blog/2111-issue-and-pull-request-template...
- Rican7 11y ago... that's what the HN link is
- mintplant 11y agoThe original link was to https://github.com/dear-github/dear-github/issues/125 https://github.com/dear-github/dear-github/issues/125 The link was changed to the GitHub blog post sometime in the past hour since _ikke_ commented.
- skeoh 11y agoIs there a way to check what was linked originally or do you just have to click the link before it's changed to know?
- rurban 11y agoI'm excited, but the PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md name is too long for root. What about PULL_REQUESTS.md and REPORT_ISSUES.md?
- sjrd 11y agoThe article says: > If you're worried about the added clutter in the root directory of your project, we also added support for a .github/ folder. You can put CONTRIBUTING.md, ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md, and PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md files in .github/ and everything will work as expected. So you can put them in `.github/` if you don't want them in root.
- rurban 11y agoI read this, yes. In .github/ people will not see it, and is even more worrysome. It belongs to root, same as CONTRIBUTING.md
- geofft 11y agoWhat's the use case of people seeing it? GitHub should be adding it automatically; issue reporters aren't copying-and-pasting the template manually. The only people who should really need to see the file itself are maintainers (or fork maintainers), unless I'm missing some use case.
- andrewguenther 11y agoWhy do people need to see it? It is automatically used when you create a new issue. That's the point.
- tobr 11y agoSo, the issue template is just a default text that individual users can modify, delete, or otherwise disregard?
- andrewguenther 11y agoWould you also like for it to ensure that all check boxes in your template are checked prior to submitting? Ask the user to please submit to a lie detector test? I think this is a completely reasonable solution to the problem and will cover the 99% case.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tobr 11y agoI'm not sure why you think I'd want that. I do however feel like it's a temporary and half-hearted quick fix. If it were possible to add custom fields to the issue tracker, they could be used to sort and filter issues. They wouldn't have to be required, but maybe if you don't fill them in, your issue would be labeled "incomplete". Since they're now asking people to go ahead and add a template file to their repos, it will make it more inconvenient to change this later.
- 0xffff2 11y agoUsers will find a way to subvert your desires in any case. IMO it's better to let users easily ignore your expectations and set up a bot to automatically close such issues with a comment explaining why. Much better that way than having a bunch of correctly formatted garbage.
- thescribe 11y agoThis sounds like more 'enterprise' bureaucracy. Coming soon, overly complicated paperwork.
- badlogic 11y agoIf you've ever managed a big OSS project you'd not think of it like 'enterprise' bureaucracy but a time safer. If OSS users can't even be asked to fill out a minimum amount of information based on a template, then I have zero interest spending my free time helping out.
- acdha 11y agoYes, OSS users have a very wide gamut — for everyone who sends a pull request with good troubleshooting and a patch, there must be half a dozen people who click New Issue, submit minimal information and, if you're lucky, come back a couple of days later and acknowledge that the real problem was a hacked up local install, using a 5 year old version of a core dependency, etc.
- andrewguenther 11y agommmm yes, those unobtrusive opt-in enterprise features.
- 0xffff2 11y agoIn which it is demonstrated that absolutely no matter what GitHub does on this topic, someone will complain. Newsflash: You don't have to use these for your projects if you don't want to.
- fiatjaf 11y agoI have this same feelings, but after thinking a bit, you'll see this is not bad. For big projects it will help an enourmous lot, but small projects don't need to use this, and probably will not, so it is still good.
- dang 11y agoUrl changed from https://github.com/dear-github/dear-github/issues/125 https://github.com/dear-github/dear-github/issues/125 to the announcement post.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- logn 11y agoThe problem I have with this is, I don't want a template for the comment a contributor leaves on a PR; I want to display a message to them before they submit a PR. It's not a standard way to display messages, requiring users to read editable text (that has no clickable URLs) and then delete that text after they read it and submit.
- marcinkuzminski 11y agoHow does that work with branches ? Is there a master branch required to have this file, what if project doesn't have master branch ? I think the concept of having a file in source code is flowed for DVCS unless you have so called "source" branch that you can define that is a default source of such information.
- JeanSebTr 11y agoYou can set the default branch [1] which will be shown on your repo's page and used by default for pull request.. I guess it should take the templates from that branch [1] https://help.github.com/articles/setting-the-default-branch/ https://help.github.com/articles/setting-the-default-branch/
- pducks32 11y agoI'd like them to choose a folder name that isn't specific to a site. .github would look silly on hit lab but I like the idea of having a serrated folder.
- 0xffff2 11y agoTrying to use a GitHub only feature on GitLab would look equally silly... This is very much a GitHub specific implementation. It makes sense for it to be identified as such. It would be nice if they used a specific branch a la gh-pages so that everyone's Git repos don't have to be polluted with GitHub specific files.
- sytse 11y agoWe plan to support both .github and .gitlab in GitLab https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2864 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2864
- slavik81 11y agoThat's an interesting idea. Having something like a gh-config branch for all the configuration would keep it isolated.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- arnarbi 11y agoWhy isn't this in a separate branch akin to gh-pages, or a separate repository akin to the wiki data?
- jrowley 11y agoI think a hidden folder is a decent compromise. >If you're worried about the added clutter in the root directory of your project, we also added support for a .github/ folder. You can put CONTRIBUTING.md, ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md, and PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md files in .github/ and everything will work as expected.
- 1qaz2wsx3edc 11y agoI think the `_TEMPLATE` is unnecessary and the `.github` folder a good compromise. However I'll take github listening to the community regardless. +1
- fiatjaf 11y agoI want to know how this works: http://gitmagic.io/ http://gitmagic.io/
- gitmagic 11y agoSend us an email at hello@gitmagic.io and we will try to answer your questions :)
- atrotors 11y agoWell, it seems like the open letter is working! I hope they address the other issues as fast as this one. Rating system is the next one on my list.
- erikb 11y agoNow I actually start to worry. Did anybody here ever have the problem of making people happy with a software project? The usual complain goes like this "You need to do X because I want to be able to do Y." In the complainers mind there is the untested idea that having X will enable him to do Y which solves his unspoken problem Z that he isn't even aware off. The thing is, at this time you don't know Z. You don't know if Y is really solving Z. And you don't know if X is really solving Y. And neither does he. But if you want him to use your tools he doesn't need to worry about that as much as you. What happens if you just go like "Okay, user wants X, here is X!" is that the users will continue to complain (maybe even more) because Z is still not solved, and because there was no testing and planning involved X is actually creating another problem Z2 that nobody had before. At least that's my experience with an open source project I managed for about 3 years. What I found actually needs to happen is to discover Z and to discover a way to solve it in the context of the project (which other people may not be as aware of as you are), and with an at least minimized chance of creating more problems. Then this actual solution needs to be sold to the users, because they are not aware of Z, so they think they don't care that you solved Z. But only after doing all that people will stop complaining (not even remembering that there was a problem and how much pain you went through to solve it of course). Hope that makes sense and explains why I start to worry now, when everybody starts cheering. What I hoped would happen is that you don't hear much about the suggested changes, some other changes happen a few weeks down the road, and then the complains stops without anybody noticing. A success would be that you don't read about github anymore after 1-2 months. People cheering and github saying "Hey we did X" is a really bad thing.
- james-skemp 11y agoI'm confused, probably because of too much variable usage in your comment. If one or more of the variables were GitHub, or issue templates, then: Don't be concerned. The user community listed grievances with some missing functionality. GitHub listened and implemented some. In this case without changing functionality for people who didn't want this. (So the person who likes the URL method can stick with that.) Good on GitHub implementing something to help their users. Isn't that what we want? Or do you want then to ignore their community?
- zenorocha 11y agoIf you need some inspiration for these templates, check this awesome curated list: https://github.com/devspace/awesome-github-templates https://github.com/devspace/awesome-github-templates